Beyond Feelings - Vincent Ruggiero [12]
That's far different from saying, "Everyone makes his or her own truth" or "It all depends on how you look at it." And it is much more reasonable.
APPLICATIONS
For years grade school students faced this question on their science tests: "True or False – The famous rings of the planet Saturn are composed of solid material." If the students marked "true," they lost credit, because the "truth" was that Saturn's rings are composed of gas or dust. Then in 1973 radar probes revealed that all those wrong answers were right. Saturn's rings are in fact composed of solid matter.6
The scene is a dormitory head resident's office. Two students are being questioned. A few minutes earlier they were engaged in a fistfight in the hall. The head resident asks them again and again how the fight started. The stories conflict. Because each student seems genuinely convinced that the other one was the aggressor, and there were no witnesses, the resident ahs no hope of discovering the truth. But is there a truth to discover? Or are there two truths, one for each student's story? What light does the chapter shed on these questions?
A strange phenomenon that affects a tiny number of the world's inhabitants has interested psychologists for some time. It occurs during what Norwegians call the murky time, the two months each year during which areas above the Arctic Circle experience almost unrelieved darkness. The effects on people have been discovered to be unfortunate, even dangerous. At worst, people experience severe tenseness, restlessness, fear, and a preoccupation with thoughts of death and even suicide. At best they experience an inability to concentrate, a tiredness, a lack of enthusiasm for anything, suspicion, and jealousy. Part of the cause is seen as lack of sleep. Accustomed to day and night, people become confused by constant darkness.7 This phenomenon poses an interesting test of truth. Would it be proper to say the phenomenon was true before it was recognized and acknowledged by psychologists? Or did it become true only when they became aware of it? And what of your relation to the phenomenon? Before you became aware of it for the first time, whether reading it here or elsewhere, it was not "true to you." But did that make it any less true? Explain in light of this chapter.
Evaluate the following dialogues in light of what you learned in this chapter. If you lack sufficient knowledge to judge the issue, do some research.
Lois: We should really quit smoking, Francis. The evidence is growing that it's a factor in a number of diseases.
Francis: Don't get nervous about it, Lois. So far there has been no definitive study – only theories and speculation and "suggested links." Nobody ever died from those. If they come up with a conclusive link between smoking and disease, there will be time enough to quit.
Martha: I don't care what the courts say about abortion – I'm convinced it's murder because the fetus is a human being.
Marian: If you want to believe that, fine. Just don't impose your beliefs on others and prevent them from exercising their rights.
Martha: You don't seem to understand. It's no just a fetus in my uterus that's human but the fetus in the uterus of every pregnant woman.
Marian: Nonsense. You have no right to classify what exists in someone else's uterus. That's her business. You should mind your own business.
Barbi: Television shows about suicide should not be aired.
Ken: Why?
Barbi: Because they cause people to commit suicide.
Ken: That's ridiculous. How can a drama or documentary that show the tragedy of suicide cause people to commit suicide?
Barbi: I don't know how it happens. Maybe some people have thoughts of suicide already and the show reinforces them. Or maybe they focus on the act of suicide and lose sight of the tragedy. All I know is that attempted suicides increase after the airing of such shows.
Mabel: I notice when you get a newspaper you immediately turn to the astrology column. Do you really believe that nonsense?
Alphonse: It's not nonsense. The planets